No traces of Partner schooner found on Sakhalin western coast.

VLADIVOSTOK, January 10 (Itar-Tass) -- No traces of the Partner
fishing schooner, which gave the SOS signals on January 7, were found on
the Sakhalin western coast. The coastline stretching for 50 kilometres has
been searched through for the last two days after the SOS signals off the
Lomanon Horn in the Uglegorsk district. The search teams of policemen and
rescuers have searched along the whole coastline by six snowmobiles, but
found nothing.
The Cambodia-flagged Partner fishing schooner was registered in the
Phnom Penh port with the shipowner in Belize. The storm that brought the
ice slush to the coast hampered the search, Uglegorsk district police
chief Sergei Bushuyev said. The ice slush covered the Tatar Strait for
400-500 metres from the coast. Nothing that could substantiate the Partner
wreckage or the crew death was found. The search teams came back to
Uglegorsk.
The active search for the schooner and its crew was halted in the
Tatar Strait, sea rescuers said. All vessels passing along the Tatar
Strait are looking for the schooner on their way along the strait.
The rescuers are surprised that no relatives of the Partner
crewmembers presumably made of 11-14 Russian citizens addressed to them.
No call has come in the Far Eastern regional branch of the Russian trade
union of sailors yet, though people usually call there over the sea
tragedies.
The motor ships Pioneer of Kholmsk of the Sakhalin shipping company
and Chelyabinsk of the Far Eastern shipping company, an emergency airplane
An-74 and a Sakhalin helicopter Mi-8 have searched for the Partner
schooner in the sea. The sea search has been vain either. A total of 74
people and 14 units of machinery were involved in the active stage of the
search.
The Partner crew most likely died, chief of the Russian Fishery Agency
Andrei Krainy told reporters on Sunday. He elaborated that this fishing
vessel was poaching. "No one aboard such poaching vessels thinks about the
vessel, survival suits and life rafts," he noted. Meanwhile, the crewmen
have no chances to survive without this safety equipment in chilly water
of 2-3 degrees Celsius and 3.5-meter-high waves. "Therefore, the fate of
the Partner crew is most likely tragic," Krany said.
He also noted that this fishing vessel was arrested last October, but
then just replaced the documents and kept poaching. "This is a pressing
problem, as the vessels under the flags of third countries are sailing in
our economic zone. They are not equipped with technical control equipment
so that they are not giving a signal to the satellite and are only
poaching," Krainy pointed out.
The Partner fishing vessel gave the SOS signals on January 7. The crew
managed to give the only radio message, "This is the Partner in distress.
The ship is sinking. The only life raft went out of order." After that the
radio contact was lost, but a radio station at the Vanino port received
the SOS signals. The search was launched immediately. Neither the vessel
nor the crew have been found yet.

.Krasin icebreaker approaching ice-stuck vessels in Sea of Okhotsk.

VLADOVOSTOK, January 10 (Itar-Tass) -- The Krasin icebreaker, which
has been struggling to the ice-stuck vessels in the Sea of Okhotsk already
for 24 hours, has 1.5 nautical miles to reach them. The hard ice situation
permits the Krasin to move forward with the speed of not more than 1.3
knots. However, the Far Eastern shipping company hopes that the icebreaker
will reach Monday the Sodruzhestvo mother ship, the Bereg Nadezhdy
refrigerated cargo ship and the Admiral Makarov icebreaker, which are
stuck in the ice 11-12 nautical miles off the coast of the Khabarovsk
Territory.
The press service of the Far Eastern shipping company reported the
Krasin is to lead the convoy of the vessels to get them to the ice-free
waters. The Krasin connected tightly with the Admiral Makarov will be
breaking an ice-free channel for the mother ship and the refrigerated
cargo ship. The ice situation is very hard in the Sakhalin Bay. The air
temperature is minus 17 degrees Celsius with the north-western winds up to
20 meters per second.
The Sodruzhestvo crew is made of 348 people and the Bereg Nadezhdy
crew - 35 people, the Russian Fishery Agency reported. Both vessels have
enough fuel and food supplies. The Sodruzhestvo has the supplies for 75
days.
The Sodruzhestvo, the Bereg Nadezhdy and the Professor Kizevetter
research vessel were trapped in the ice on December 30. The Admiral
Makarov icebreaker succeeded to bring the Professor Kizevetter to the
drifting ice area. The refrigerated cargo ship failed to sail after the
icebreaker.
According to many years of scientific monitoring, the ice is from two
to four meters thick in various periods in the Sakhalin Bay with
occasional ice floes up to 25 meters thick.
-0-baz